Class with the Enemy
by mihane100
Summary: After the accidental destroying of several of Ghost Writer's books, Ember is charged with the task of blending into Casper High as a student and retrieving a rare book for his collection, for fear of her precious guitar paying the price. It's not as easy as she thinks though. After all, how can it be, when you sit next to one of your enemies in class everyday? Collab with Kasena.
1. Chapter 1

******Class with the Enemy **

**Greetings readers! What you are about to read is another collab I did with Kasena (of whom has a fanfiction account if you haven't checked it out already). I also feel obliged to tell you that this will contain lots of Phantom Rocker (Ember X Danny), so if that isn't your kind of thing, you might want to read the final collab (which is FULL Badger Cereal btw) that we did together instead, of which I will upload to this account soon. However, I wouldn't advise it because you may get confused about a few details in that collab if you choose to skip this one.**

**Disclaimer: To avoid confusion, nor Kasena or I own Danny Phantom (we're also from different sides of the globe so some spelling that looks wrong may actually be right in the other author's country). If one of us DID own Danny Phantom, then we'd be writing episodes for Season 4, not fanfiction. **

**Chapter One**

_She_ stood outside the high school, bag in hand, ready for another day of...being invisible. You see, when you're like her and everybody knows your name, there are times when you would rather blend in with the crowd. Walking through the school corridors, passing rows after rows of lockers, the teenager brought her mind back, to before she came to this place everyday, to her life in the lonely secluded place, known to most as the Ghost Zone.

Ember was sitting on her bed in her personal ghost lair, the day her life changed. The lair, much like her ex-boyfriend's, was the shape of a skull. However, her's had a guitar in its mouth as a personal touch, and that, she believed, made it that much cooler than his. The rock skull was usually sat right in the middle of the Zone, surrounded by purple spectral spirals numbers 572, 573 and 574, in what was known mostly as Sector 13. Some ghost had said that those living in this area are just plain unlucky, but if you asked Ember, she would just roll her eyes and tell you that no-one in the GZ was ever remotely lucky to begin with. So, here the teen rocker was, in her makeshift 'room', strumming some chords on her guitar for inspiration, when she was interrupted by a loud rapping on the door...if you could call that rock shape in front of the entrance a door, anyway.

She was appalled to see that it was her ex-boyfriend, Skulker. "What do you want?"

He, surprisingly, was holding some flowers while rubbing the back of his neck. "I apologise to you, for whatever it is I did." He muttered the last part. She glared, knowing he had just made some smart comment. "I just want you to be my girlfriend again."

She scoffed, "Oh, come _on_. It's _over_, Babypop! Done! Ka-put! I am never ever getting back together with you, like, ever. So just… just quit trying."

He dropped the bouquet angrily, and wedged his foot in the door as she attempted to close it. He activated his weapons, and growled, "If we can't do this the easy way, then you can't be anyone else's!" She screamed as he shot at her. Ducking out of the way, she fled further into the room. He followed in after her, guns blazing. She grabbed her guitar and strung out a chord, a powerful ray of bright purple energy blasting out of the instrument like a bazooka, hitting the hunter's robot suit and temporarily stunning him. In a panic, the rocker flew out of her lair and into the Ghost Zone.

He followed after her, on her heels, until he began to fall, "What?! No, no, no! I charged it just last night!" His shouts fell on deaf ears though, as Ember flew for her afterlife. Just when the ghost girl thought she was safe, she caught sight of the Ghost Writer's library approaching, and gasped, as she found that she was unable to stop. "Where are the breaks?! Where are the breeeeeaks!?" she panicked, squeezing her eyes shut at the impending pain she was probably about to endure.

It felt like she had waited forever, but when she finally came crashing through the roof, she found that she had teared the place, and some books apart, much to the Ghost Writer's distress. "That could've gone a lot better," she groaned and winced at the mess, trying to stand up in the wreckage. "Oh, crap."

"WHAT did you _do_?!" The Ghost Writer hissed, rage seeping out of him.

"Ran from a lame hunter, had a bit of a crash landing." She told him vaguely, brushing her shoulder off, trying not to flinch.

He looked in horror at the mess around her as if he had just witnessed a murder, "You destroyed some of my best books!"

"Aw, c'mon, nerd," she snorted. "It's not like it was that big of a deal. It was just some stupid old books. You're about the only dude that bothers with these things anyway." Ember rolled her eyes at the Ghost Writer and picked up one of the books by its spine in disdain as if to prove her point.

"Just stupid old books?!" He exclaimed, "Those were worth more than you and your guitar!" His mouth was gaping at her insolence. He didn't know that teenagers these days thought that reading was in such bad taste!

"How can a book be worth _anything_? Besides, only a couple pages ripped out completely. Can't you, like, glue them back in, or something?" She asked. She was starting to feel a little guilty about crashing into his library now and she didn't like it. Ember sighed. "Maybe I can even help you out."

The writer ghost's attitude seemed to do a complete twist and he grinned mischievously, a wicked glint in his eye. "You know, I believe you can."

Ember gave him a confused look and managed to withhold a nervous gulp. "Uh...what?"

"There's a rare book I've been wanting my hands on for a while, now. Originally, there was only ten copies. I know the location of one of them." He gestured her over to his office space and Ember approached him reluctantly, following him back to his office space, and hovered above the clutter. "It belongs to this man." He handed her a picture of a balding man with facial hair and a larger-than-average stomach. If she didn't know any better, Ember swore she'd seen that man before somewhere. "I want you to get that book from him for me. Consider it repaying a debt."

She narrowed her eyes, "What's in it for me?"

His grin grew, as he eyed the guitar on her back. "Your guitar won't be destroyed." She gasped at this, grabbing her precious guitar firmly in a defensive gesture and secretly hoping he wouldn't go through with it. She knew he had powers that could do that, and she really didn't want to test him. He stuck his hand out, "Do we have a deal?"

She stared at the ghost uncertainly and weighed the pros and cons of the situation in her head. After much thought, she shot him a glare and hesitantly took his hand, "Alright. I'll do it." Soon after, she left, a photograph of Mr. William Lancer falling from her pocket and floating down to the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's Chapter Two! Kasena and I would like to thank anyone that has favourited, followed and reviewed this story so far and we hope to bring you more chapters soon! ^^**

**Disclaimer:**** To avoid confusion, nor Kasena or I own Danny Phantom (we're also from different sides of the globe so some spelling that looks wrong may actually be right in the other author's country). If one of us DID own Danny Phantom, then we'd be writing episodes for Season 4, not fanfiction. **

**Chapter Two**

Ember gulped, guitar case in hand, as she walked through the very familiar looking public high school. Before her arrival, the Ghost Writer had given the girl a spectral communication device shaped like a high tech punk earring to wear so he could get updates as to whether she had actually retrieved his stupid book or not, or was close to retrieving it. However, he had also warned her to _never_, under _any circumstances_, remove that device. He had informed her that as soon as the communication device is removed, her human disguise would be blown and Danny Phantom would be able to sense her again and she definitely didn't want that. The last thing she wanted right now was to have the dipstick ruining her plans yet again.

"You must be Miss Emma McLain," a voice from behind her announced, startling her. She yelped and spun around to find, conveniently, her target. She frowned, now remembering that he had tried to stop her show, and stop her from gaining fans. She slowly nodded.

"Yeah, I'm... Emma. Who are you?" she asked bluntly. Lancer blinked, before smiling. Most of his students tried to have a bit more… finesse when it came to these things, but he could tell Emma was going to be different.

He chuckled, "I'm Mr. Lancer, the vice principal. I believe you are also in my homeroom and 1st period."

The girl shrugged. "Apparently. Lead the way, grandpa," she told him rudely, an unamused look on her face. She might as well get this over with. Mr Lancer did a double take at her attitude, but decided not to say anything. It was the girl's first day after all.

"Yes, well...my classroom is this way. Please follow me, Ms. McLain." Nodding in annoyance at being told what to do for the first time in her afterlife, the ghost girl followed the overweight teacher past a series of classroom doors and hallways until they finally reached a red door, labelled 'English class, 4b, Lancer' at the front on a gold plaque.

"Here we are," he told her, opening the door for her. "Please pick any empty seat you like." The girl curiously walked inside the small room and let her eyes scan over the desks of students in the search for an empty desk. That was when she saw the last person she had expected to see: Danny Phantom, in human form. Really, she should have remembered that he went to this place, but it seemed to just slip her mind. Oh, she'd have _fun _with this.

"I'll sit next to the dipstick," she told Lancer, sitting herself down at the empty desk next to the confused half ghost, of whom had been asleep on his desk until he heard the term 'dipstick'. He could have sworn that sounded just like Ember, but it couldn't be. After all, this girl was human as far as he knew and she looked nothing like the ghost rocker. He was probably imagining things.

"Okay class, today we shall be studying 'Othello', one of the plays written by the great literary genius, Shakespeare, now please…"

Danny zoned the teacher out and chose to stare at the new girl curiously, who was now giving him a green eyed challenging look. She certainly didn't look like Ember. The main difference was that even though she had a ponytail and blue streaks in her hair, her main hair colour seemed to be black and her black bangs were swept behind her ear. She had regular, human looking skin and was wearing jeggings, and a green and purple shirt with matching trainers. Overall, she looked pretty normal and he didn't think he'd seen her before. Then, why did she seem so familiar?

"You got a _problem_, Babypop?" she asked, giving him a mocking smirk.

He blinked. "N-no. Hey, my name's Danny," he told her, introducing himself. Quite honestly, it took everything Ember had not to laugh.

"Emb-Emma, Emma McLain," she told him with a wink. Danny smiled. What was wrong with him? That was _obviously_ not Ember. If it was, he'd already be punched in the face by now by the aggressive rocker. All the ghost fighting he'd been doing lately was probably starting to mess with his head a bit. She yawned, "Is it always this boring?"

He let out a small laugh, "Yeah, basically. The other day, he-" He cut himself off as a blue wisp escaped his mouth. Annoyed, he raised his hand, and left when Lancer dismissed him. Ember rolled her eyes. She knew exactly what that meant.

For a while, she used her notebook to write some new music, until he heard the teacher call her out, "Ms. McLain, would you mind telling the class Othello's famous quote about jealousy?

She rolled her eyes, looking back down at the paper, "It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock," she told him in a monotone, not even looking at him. She usually hated books but after spending time with the Ghost Writer, she had eventually been convinced to read one of Shakespeare's most tragic plays, not that she would admit how much she enjoyed said play out loud.

He stared, and cleared his throat, "Yes, well, please do try to seem like you're paying attention."

"Riiiiight. Gotcha." The class went on, in her mind, with him droning on about lame book stuff.

After class, she went to his desk and attempted to finish her mission, "You know, Mr. Lancer, there's this one really rare book I heard about…" she told him, casually looking at the pile of books on his desk in search for 'the one'.

The teacher perked up at that. "A book you say?"

"Yeah, and since you're _so_ intelligent in the ways of literature, I was wondering if you knew about it? It's called the Time of Now?" she asked as innocently as she could.

He nodded, "Yes, I know of such a book. In fact, I have a copy of it."

"Oh, REALLY? Can I take a look?" she could hardly withhold her excitement of almost being able to finally leave this boring world.

He shook his head, "I'm afraid not. I don't bring it with me, and because of its rarity, I hardly let those I trust look at it. But it is nice to know of another literature fan."

She quickly shook her head and denied, "No, no, it's not me. It's a… friend of mine. I'm not that into literature."

The teacher looked sceptical at this. She was much too excited at the prospect of seeing that book and by the way she had easily been able to answer that Othello question in class earlier, he could tell that she was lying. "Right, well, if you can prove to me that you… or your friend… are trustworthy enough, I may let you see it."

The girl growled. "How the _heck _am I supposed to do THAT?"

The man gave her an authoritative look. "Well, Emma, I believe that there is a book club in this room at lunch on Thursdays. If you make it there for a few weeks, I_ may _consider trusting you with it. You have just joined after all, so it is not as if you had joined any other school clubs yet, right?"

She grumbled and headed out of the class. Of course she had to agree to that. What else could she do? The guy was a jerk.

"Hello? Ember? Answer me!" The rocker gasped and spun around the find the owner of the voice, but found no-one. How had she had her cover blown already? Ghost Writer was going to destroy her guitar for sure if she couldn't somehow keep that person quiet.

"Who ARE you? Answer me, dorkwad!" That was when she heard a buzzing sound very close to her ear that sounded suspiciously like static interference. Static? What…? That was when she remembered the earring communicator.

"Ghost Writer?" she hissed quietly in confusion. She heard sarcastic clapping in response.

"Congratulations, girl. You can stop panicking now."

Ember growled and made her way towards the empty janitor's closet, so she wouldn't be heard talking to herself. "What do you want _now_? I don't have your stupid book yet, okay?"

She heard an irritated sigh. "You _don't_? Did the human not have it in his possession?"

Ember was the one to sigh this time, in annoyance. "Yes, he had it, but the dude treats it like the freakin' crown jewels. Won't let anyone he doesn't trust _see_ it, let alone _have_ it!

The Ghost writer hummed. "And you know this for sure?"

She rolled her eyes, even though she knew he couldn't see it. "Yes, dude. He told me himself, for Ghost Zone's sake! Seriously, though, I think you and baldie would either be best friends, or mortal enemies. You're both obsessed with books and are more annoying than the dipstick."

The ghost was silent for a minute as he processed what the girl had just told him. It appeared that getting that book was going to be a lot harder than he thought it would. Before he could say anything though, he heard what sounded like a bell ringing.

"Sorry Writer, 'Emma' has maths class now. Though I can't see why I can't just go all 'evil rocker' on him and his stinkin' book. I could get it done easy and go home!"

She heard a horrified gasp from the other end of the line. "WHAT? Of course not! You might hurt the poor thing! I'm not letting you hurt another defenseless piece of literature, I-"

Ember groaned and cut the ghost off. "Look, I'll _get_ you your stupid book, but I just need _time_."

"But y-"

"Gotta go. Maths class, remember?" she told him, cutting him off yet again. With that, the teen turned the device off and stormed out of the small room. If she was going to be a human for a while, she may as well not suck at it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey again, you wonderful readers! Here's the next chapter. Enjoy! As always, the authors would like to thank anyone who has read, reviewed, favourited or followed this story. It means a lot to us and we hope to bring you more chapters in the weeks to come.**

**Disclaimer: To avoid confusion, nor Kasena or I own Danny Phantom (we're also from different sides of the globe so some spelling that looks wrong may actually be right in the other author's country). If one of us DID own Danny Phantom, then we'd be writing episodes for Season 4, not fanfiction. **

**Chapter Three**

Most of the class passed pretty much like the first one had, her keeping her head down and trying to not get called on. Thankfully, she was able to make it to lunch without too much of a problem. She considered going to the cafeteria, but that would most likely mean having to sit with other people and act normal. Not particularly liking the idea of that, she grabbed her guitar case and headed towards the music room.

After wandering around lost for a few minutes, a student pointed her the right way, and she was finally able to sit down in the class near a window. She got her notebook out and laid it in front of her. Smiling at finally being able to do something worthwhile while she was here, she played a few chords on her guitar, while she sang some of her lyrics to see if they sounded right. She was in her element now and pretty soon, it was just her and her guitar. She didn't have to worry about getting the stupid book, or getting her cover blown. All that mattered right now was the soothing sound of her guitar's melodic tune swirling all around her and the song lyrics flowing through her. All too soon though, the bell rang and she had to go to her next class. Taking a glance at her schedule, she groaned. Her next class was computers. Sure, Technus would love it, but her? Not so much. She was pretty sure that while she was alive, computers weren't even a thing.

Walking into what she assumed was the computer lab, she sat down at a random computer, glaring at it with contempt, until she heard an excited voice next to her address her alter ego, 'Emma'.

"Hey, you new here?" The boy asked cheerfully, his hand firmly grasped around a small device that Skulker had informed her was a 'PDA'. "The name's Tucker. Tucker Foley. And you are?"

Disgusted, she glanced at him, "_So_ not interested." She paused, then decided that it wouldn't hurt to answer his question. He would only find out from someone else anyway. "Emma McLain." Seeing his gadgets, she was almost glad she had picked this seat. At least she'd have a nerd to help her out. Looking back to the computer, then to him, she asked, "Hey, I've never really used one of these things before. Think you can help me out?"

Tucker gaped at the new girl. "You've...NEVER used a computer before?! Where have you been living, a rock?"

The rocker glared at him, thinking of her home in the Ghost Zone. "Something like that. It's doing this weird...login thing. So, you gonna help me or what?"

The boy chuckled cockily. "Of course. Who am I to disappoint such a damsel in distress in her time of technological need?"

Ember rolled her eyes and groaned. What a loser! Still, she needed him if she had any hope of passing whatever this class was. "A guy who's going to lose a couple teeth if he doesn't take a hint. Now help me out, here."

"Working on it," he told her quickly, beginning to hurriedly type something into her computer's keyboard, for fear of losing his teeth and quite possibly a limb.

The lesson was pretty boring after that. While Tucker worked on completing Ember's assignment, the girl had taken to working on more of her song lyrics inside of her notebook. When the bell finally rang, the girl was only too happy to be out of there. Before she could fully escape through the classroom's door though, she was interrupted by the same boy.

"Hey, Emma!" The rocker rolled her eyes at the sound of Tucker's voice, but turned around to face him regardless.

"What do ya want?"

"To go out with someone as _fine_ as you, of course!" Ember groaned at this. Oh boy. She really couldn't be bothered with this, especially when she had a mission to deal with. Boys were not exactly on the top of her agenda, especially ones that were, well, nerds.

"Like I said, not interested, babypop. Later."

And just like that, she was gone.

She walked back to where she thought Lancer's class was, then mentally cheered when she realized she had remembered. Walking in, she sat in the same seat as she had during English class and realised, with disgust, that Phantom's friends were in the same homeroom as her. Deciding for the moment to just pretend not to notice them, she got her notebook back out and grinned as she worked on the song. Just as the bell rang, she looked up and saw Danny run in, panting and red in the face, from running, she assumed. She held in a gasp.

He looked as if he'd just been run over. Multiple times. Bruises were forming, and- was that some _blood_ caked into his hair? He also seemed to be wincing everytime he moved his arm. Had a ghost done that? Strangely enough though, nobody seemed to act as if this was abnormal at all, which made her frown. Was this a common thing? He took his seat next to her, and she really couldn't help asking, "What happened to _you_, dipstick?"

He shrugged, "Nothing much, just Dash being his usual jerky self." Wait, he had to deal with ghosts _and_ humans? She winced in sympathy.

"Yeesh, sorry. Who's Dash, anyway?" He pointed to a blond jock sitting in the front. She recognized him as one of her security guards from her show. "Hmph. He's probably got more muscle than smarts, anyway." Danny grinned, until Sam coughed and poked his arm.

When she pointed to 'Emma,' he understood. "Oh, right, sorry. Emma, these are my friends Sam and Tucker. You guys, this is Emma."

She gave a nod to Sam, who returned the gesture. She didn't even focus on Tucker, not wanting to attract too much of his attention, "Yeah, already met the nerd. We have computers." When the geek winked at her, she rolled her eyes.

"Heh, sorry about that. When there's a new girl, Tucker thinks he has a shot with her."

Feeling offended, he exclaimed, "Maybe I do!"

"Not on your life, Tuck-no-geek."

Sam laughed at Emma's retort. "I like _her_. Hey, you look familiar. Have we met before?"

Ember laughed nervously. "What? No! No, of course not! This is my first day here! What makes you say... that?" '_Damn it, Ghost Writer! Couldn't his stupid human disguise have been more subtle?' _she mentally growled.

Luckily for Ember, Sam seemed to buy the excuse, at least for the moment, and shrugged. "I don't know. You just seem familiar, I guess."

She brushed it off, "I get that a lot. Hey, you guys in the book club on Thursday, or whatever?"

Sam nodded, "Oh, yeah! I love the book club. Right now, we're reading Hamlet. Why? Are you gonna join?"

Tucker scoffed, "Oh, come on, Sam. No one joins book club, anymore. Hardly anyone even reads. I don't get why you do."

Ember nodded, "I'll admit, I'm more into music, but eh. Books could be a whole lot worse." She smirked, then taunted him, "Something that's even worse than books, is technology."

He gasped, holding his PDA close, "It's okay, baby, she didn't mean it!"

Sam laughed, "Wow, and I thought no one else had a sense of humor like mine! In other words, messing with Tuck."

"What can I say? The dude makes it too easy. But wait... Baby? Is he... talking about the PDA thing?"

"Unfortunately, yes. See, this is why the guy can't get dates."

Still smirking, she said, "I know just the person I can mess with, that'll be even more fun than the first." She looked over Danny's shoulder, and gave an obviously fake gasp, "Your parents!"

"Gah! Hide me!" He ducked under his desk only to look around and see she had pulled a trick on him. Getting back into his seat, he frowned, "How'd you know I'd act like that, anyway?"

"Oh, please. Don't all teens hate being seen anywhere near their parents?" Although the boys accepted this as an answer, Sam wasn't as quick to dismiss it.

"Well yeah, but... he hid under the table. You don't even look remotely surprised at that."

The ghost girl shrugged. "Yeah, well, the town I used to live in... uh... always had... earthquakes, so I'm kinda used to people ducking for cover under desks like mice."

"Where'd you used to live, anyway?"

Her eyes widened as she began to panic, "Uh, uh," She thought back to her human life and tried to remember. It was true, at her school, they were used to earthquakes, but where?

"Uh...Rebmeville. Yeah, Rebmeville. You ever heard of it?"

Team Phantom shrugged and looked at each other in confusion. Where the heck was that?

Ember grinned. _Rebmeville_? Genius! "Perfect! I mean, uh... that's a shame. You'd love it there."

They managed to get through homeroom without it being too painful. However, what Ember didn't notice when she left the room was that Sam was giving her a suspicious glare. She know there was something up with the new girl. The question was, what?

Ember walked out of the school slowly, seeing everyone hop on a bus or walk, or get picked up, when she realized she had nowhere to go, in the human world. After all, the Ghost Writer had pretty much refused to let her leave this world without the book.

"Hey, Ghost Writer! Hey! Answer me!" she growled into the communication device. "I've got nowhere to _stay_ here, jerk! HELLO?!" The rocker sighed and chose to sit down in defeat on the sidewalk. She was homeless. Wow, that had never happened before.

"Hey, you okay?" She looked up to see a girl with black hair and blue eyes staring down at her. She almost looked like a mini-Fenton.

"Huh? Dani, right?" the rocker asked, raising an eyebrow in interest. She'd seen the ghost girl flying around the ghost zone for awhile, but the little halfa would never stay in one place for too long. As to why she looked so much like Danny...nobody knew. There was a secret there somewhere, but she wasn't bothered. The two were probably related or something.

Dani gasped and her body tensed. "Y-you... know who I am?"

Ember laughed, suddenly realising that she was still in human form. She contemplated messing with the girl, but she was way too tired right now.

"Yeah, we met in the GZ a while back," she told her with a smirk. "The name's Ember, Ember McClain."

Danielle's eyes widened. "W-what? But you're... human! There's no way you're that rockstar! Nope. So not falling for it."

Ember stood up and sighed. "I've got business here for a while, so I had to look the part. It's a complicated deal. Don't go broadcasting this, though. Phantom would only get in the way."

The halfa narrowed her eyes, "Why shouldn't I go tell him right now? After all, don't you wanna take over the world, or something like that?"

Ember tried to reason, "I'm just trying to do a non-evil favor for someone. If I don't, he'll destroy my guitar! That would be like me taking away your ghost appearance-thing!"

Wary, she nodded, "Alright. I get it. But then why were you sitting here?"

She shrugged, "Nothin' a kid would really understand."

Feeling both sympathy and offense at what the ghost said, she told her, "Hey, what if I do understand?! And what if I'm able to help?"

She scoffed, "Please, how could you help me? I have no where to go, in the human world. Writer sent me here with no home."

Dani considered walking away from the ghost, but the hero complex inside of her, that she had gotten from her original, was telling her to help. She sighed, "I… I have an apartment. If you can help with the money stuff, you can stay with me."

Raising an eyebrow, she asked, "How and why do you have an apartment?"

Shrugging innocently, "I've picked up a couple tricks. I need one because I don't want to have to always find a new place to sleep every night. So, what do you say?"

To Ember, besides getting a job that all teens had, anyway, there wasn't that much of a downside. She nodded, "Yeah, alright." She then let the young halfa lead the way to the apartment.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey again, you wonderful readers! Here's the next chapter. Enjoy! As always, the authors would like to thank anyone who has read, reviewed, favourited or followed this story. It means a lot to us and we hope to bring you more chapters in the weeks to come.**

**Disclaimer: To avoid confusion, nor Kasena or I own Danny Phantom (we're also from different sides of the globe so some spelling that looks wrong may actually be right in the other author's country). If one of us DID own Danny Phantom, then we'd be writing episodes for Season 4, not fanfiction. **

**Chapter Four**

The two walked a few blocks in silence until they finally reached a small building on the edge of town. The halfa frantically rummaged through her pockets and let out a triumphant grin when her fingers finally clasped around the metal key. Opening the door, Dani walked inside, Ember following behind her. "I can't believe they let a kid like you have an apartment all to herself," Ember muttered, walking inside. Overall, the place didn't look too bad. The floor was covered in a thick light blue carpet, the walls were painted a cream colour and there was a large dark blue sofa in the middle of the room opposite what looked like an old looking television.

"Technically, I shouldn't be allowed this place, but... heh heh, overshadowing has to be good for something, right?" Alright, the girl may have learnt a trick or two from her father while she was oblivious to the fact that he was a lying snake. She couldn't deny that using her powers for her own benefit could be kinda helpful sometimes. Ember smirked at the girl and sat herself down onto the couch cushions and turned the TV on, making herself at home. If she was going to be staying here for a while, she may as well get comfortable.

Meanwhile, Dani was in the kitchen making what smelled like soup. The ghost smiled. She was never big on soup, but it smelled delicious and, as her stomach was now reminding her, she was starving.

"How's the food doing in there, squirt?" she asked impatiently, but cheerfully. She heard the clatter of pans and a curse word in response.

"It's HOT! Ah, ah!" she hissed, probably getting even more soup on her. Feeling bad for the poor kid, Ember walked over to the kitchen to see how it was going. What she saw when she entered the small kitchen was Dani with a cloth, trying to wipe away all of the soup that she had somehow sprayed everywhere, with a wince on her face, as if she had burnt herself.

"Oh, here," Ember said, ripping off a lot of kitchen towels and trying to wipe all of the soup off of the floor. "How did you even manage to do that? This stuff is everywhere."

"It's complicated. Besides, I'm technically only 12 and cooking food is hard!"

Ember chuckled. "Fine, then get your 12 year old butt outta here."

Dani blinked and stood up. "Uh...what? What about dinner? Aren't you hungry?"

The rocker gave the girl an unamused look and gestured to Dani's stained clothes. "Oh yeah, I'm starving. But you're not coming in here again until you've got something clean on."

Dani gave Ember a disbelieving look. "But-"

"Don't argue with me, pipsqueak. Get dressed, now."

The girl sighed in defeat and made her way to her bedroom. She knew that there was no way she was going to win in an argument against _Ember_, of all people. She was young, but she wasn't stupid. Meanwhile, Ember nodded in satisfaction and looked towards the stove that the soup had been cooking in. Someone had to be the adult around here and since that apparently had to be her, she needed to make dinner. But what? Her own cooking skills were pretty limited, after all.

Rooting through the fridge, Ember finally came across two eggs and some mushrooms. Well, a mushroom omelette was as good as anything, especially since neither of them seemed to have enough money for takeout food. Going over to the kitchen's 'work bench', Ember took out a plate from the cupboard above and placed some mushrooms onto it. She then started peeling the mushrooms one by one and chopping them as best as she could. Once about two of those was done, she went over to the frying pan and cracked a few of the eggs and prepared to fry them. Once that was fried enough, she dropped in the mushrooms and waited for it to fry.

"Hey, what are you doing in there?" Came Dani's cautious voice from the other side of the closed kitchen door. "I can smell burning! I know your name's Ember and all, but I didn't think that meant you were an arsonist!"

Ember smirked at the strange halfa. "Calm down, mini dipstick. I'm just making dinner. It'll be done in about…" she checked the clock on the wall, "...three minutes."

Hearing silence, she decided to assume that the girl had gone. Sliding the omelette onto the plates, she carried them out with ease and placed them on the table in front of the TV and in front of the astonished hybrid. Due to dying in a fire and usually having flaming hair, she physically couldn't be burnt at all anymore.

Dani stared at the plate in front of her hungrily. It looked so tasty! But she was unsure if the food was poisoned, or something equally horrible. She poked at her food, eyeing it suspiciously. She watched as Ember ate the food, until the ghost girl caught her eye, and she quickly looked away. Ember sighed, "Kid, the food ain't gonna bite back. I made our food the exact same way. See? I'm eating. Now you eat, too. Can't take care of a kid if she won't help me out." Dani picked up a small amount of egg and mushroom with her fork. After an extensive examination, she finally ate it, and was pleasantly surprised. She had expected it to be totally gross, but it didn't taste half bad. She nodded at the rocker, who smirked back.

After dinner, Dani shifted uncomfortably, then told her, "There's only one bed, so if you want it…"

She waved the halfa off, "Nah, it's fine, squirt. You take the bed. I'm fine with crashing on the couch."

"Are you sure? Are you gonna be comfortable? Are you gonna be too cold? Are you-"

Rolling her eyes, she exclaimed, "Hey, kid, it's fine. Heat core, remember? I'll be fine. Now, since you're still kinda young, you need to get some sleep. So go." Without looking up, she pointed to the area she guessed the bedroom was. Dani, already being pretty tired, nodded compliantly and walked to her 'bedroom'.

"Aaaaaaahhh!" Dani screamed, shooting up in bed. Ugh, she had had _that_ dream again. Ever since that melting thing, she had been constantly getting nightmares about it and her 'Dad'.

"What's wrong? I hear screaming!" yelled a dark shape as it approached the bed. Squinting in the darkness, the halfa could make out two familiar green eyes staring at her with...concern? Was Ember actually worried about her?

"I-I'm… f-fine…" Dani told her, though her shaky voice betrayed her. Ember frowned in the darkness. What was wrong with the poor kid?

"Well, don't scare me like that, pipsqueak. Just about gave me a heart attack, you did."

Dani didn't say anything, which seemed to worry her even more. She had expected a retort back or… something! Anything was was better than the stiff silence.

"Look, you-" that was when she heard the sniffles. "Dani, are you sure you're okay?"

The girl shook her head in the darkness and tried to stop her tears from flowing in front of the ghost. "I-I t-told you, I'm f-fine!" she blurted out stubbornly. "It was just… a nightmare."

"A nightmare? Well, that's alright then," she told her kindly, patting the girl lightly on the head for support. "If it's a nightmare, it means it's not real, right?"

This, to the ghost's surprise, made the little halfa burst into tears. Not really sure what to do, Ember put her arms around the sobbing girl and awkwardly attempted to give her a hug. It seemed to have worked too, for the most part. Ember, having a heat core, was very warm and her words of awkward reassurance were really comforting. Before long, Dani's tears had run out, but she still kept her arms tightly around Ember regardlessly, as if the rest of her life depended on it. That ghost rocker was the only person to comfort her since she had run away from home and she didn't want to lose the comfort just yet. Looking at the little girl, Ember found herself, much to her own surprise, smiling fondly at her and stroking her hair as a soothing gesture. That was when she felt the girl's body go limp. She had actually fallen asleep in her arms. Letting go of Dani, she gently pushed the girl's body back until it tilted back onto her pillow and her sleeping form lay snuggled into the bed's duvet. Giving one last look at the halfa, Ember smiled softly and walked back into the living room area for some well deserved rest of her own.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, she did a double take. It was six in the morning! "Oh, crap," she muttered. She quickly put some bread in the toaster and packed her things up. Once it popped out, she spread some butter on it and put it in her mouth as she hopped around putting her shoes on. She ate the other piece of toast while she wrote a note to the halfa.

_'__Dani, gotta get to school. There's bread next to the toaster. ~E.' _

With that, she ran out the door and down the street in a frenzied panic. She couldn't be late for school! She had Lancer first after all, and she wanted to get ahead on her mission before lunch.

She was able to run to the school and get there with enough time to get to the class and settle down in her seat. She looked up at the clock. 6:48. She mentally cheered herself that she was able to be fast enough. Opening her backpack, she got her notebook out and began to work on her song. She was sure it was almost done, but it still needed some tweaking.

Danny was able to walk into the classroom before the bell rang today, carrying a paper sheet. This gave Ember an idea for a little revenge for sticking her into that stupid soup can. As he sat next to her, she leaned over and asked, "Hey, I want to make sure I did this right, can I see your homework?"

He nodded, not seeing a reason to distrust her, "Yeah, here you go." She nodded, and when he turned to get something from his backpack, she lit the paper on fire. He turned back to her only to see one piece of homework. Puzzled, he asked, "Where's my homework?"

She smirked, a smug look on her face, as she asked in an innocent voice, "What homework?" He had no chance to retort when Lancer came around collecting the papers, and he marked Danny off for not turning it in. She handed hers to Lancer, then looked back at him, the same challenging expression as yesterday, "Your move, dipstick."

Danny gasped and met her challenging look with one of his own. If she wanted to play it that way, then fine. "Uh, Mr. Lancer? Emma was just telling me how much she wants to study everything about Shakespeare and old English, but she's got no-one to teach it to her."

She glared at him. "What? No, I-"

"I would love to teach it all to you, Emma," Lancer said, delighted. "How does after school sound?" Seeing this as a convenient opportunity to gain the man's trust, she nodded angrily. She also couldn't afford to upset the man, anyway. Danny was _so_ going to _pay_ for that! Once the teacher had walked off, she gave him a pointed glare.

"Did you REALLY have to do that, dipstick?" she asked, a hint of amusement in her voice.

Danny smirked. "Well, did you _really _have to lose my homework?"

"This isn't the end, dorkwad. It's only the beginning. You're playing with fire, here." At the last part, she nearly lost it, and almost broke down laughing.

"And _you're_ on thin ice, right now," he said, laughing hysterically at his own joke. This unfortunately set Ember off and the two of them burst out laughing loudly in front of all of their classmates and teacher, of whom didn't understand what was so funny.

"Mr. Fenton, Ms. McLain. Detention please, tomorrow after school."

The two coughed in an attempt to conceal their laughter and solemnly nodded, still with massive grins on their faces.

"S-sorry, sir."

"Y-yeah. Won't... h-happen a-again."

While they both agreed to Lancer that it wouldn't happen again, they both knew in their minds, _This meant war._

After Lancer had read an ancient book to them aloud for a while, Ember heard a familiar buzzing in her ear. "Ember? Ember, are you there?"

Hearing something that wasn't her voice coming from Emma, Danny looked at her strangely. She began to panic, and raised her hand, "Lancer, can I use the restroom?" When he nodded, she restrained herself from running out of the room and ran into a janitor's closet. "What do you want, Writer?"

He anxiously asked her, "Do you have it yet?"

She groaned loudly, "Ugh, no, Writer, I don't! It could take weeks before I get it, okay?! And by the way, I'm in class right now!"

He paused, "Oh. Okay. I'll call back, though. I need to add that book to my collection."

"No kidding. Jeez, Writer. You're _so_ impatient." She knew it was his obsession, but jeez.

"By the way, how did you fare last night?" he asked curiously, knowing that the teen had to have stayed somewhere for the night, due to not being able to come back to the Ghost Zone.

"You're a jerk, you know that?" she hissed angrily. "If it weren't for...a certain someone...I would have had to sleep on the street!" She decided against telling him about Dani. It was none of his business, after all. He heard laughing in response.

"Just remember, Ember. You brought this on yourself," he told her pretentiously. "I'll call back later." With that said, he hung up on the startled teen.

"Call back? CALL BACK?! No, you will NO-" the door to the janitor's closet creaked open, interrupting her little rant. The janitor, Edward Scrufarian, regarded the strange teenager hiding in his room with confusion.

"Are you alright there, missy?" he asked, his bushy brown mustache moving up and down as he spoke, like a prickly caterpillar.

"Heh, heh...yeah, I'm gonna...go," Ember laughed nervously, before speeding off back to class. That was so embarrassing! She had to make sure she was never caught doing that again. What if someone like Danny had come in, for some reason? To anyone else, it would probably look like she was some schizophrenic weirdo that was having some sort of weird argument with herself. Even if she _was_ stuck in the human world, she had an image to maintain.

She walked back into the classroom and as soon as she came in, Danny ran out. Before either of them had fully exited the doorway though, they both gave each other a look that said _'I'll explain later.''_ She sat back in her desk and resumed not paying attention to Lancer. When he came back with a large scratch on his arm, he sat down and tried to downplay it, "Tripped on the way to the bathroom. You?"

She shrugged, doing the same, "Wrong number tried to call me."

Although they both looked like they bought the excuses, neither ghost teen actually believed each other. Something was definitely not as it appeared, and they were each determined to find out what the other was hiding.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey again, you wonderful readers! Here's the next chapter. Enjoy! As always, the authors would like to thank anyone who has read, reviewed, favourited or followed this story. It means a lot to us and we hope to bring you more chapters in the weeks to come.**

**Disclaimer: To avoid confusion, nor Kasena or I own Danny Phantom (we're also from different sides of the globe so some spelling that looks wrong may actually be right in the other author's country). If one of us DID own Danny Phantom, then we'd be writing episodes for Season 4, not fanfiction. **

**Yet Another Disclaimer: The song used in this chapter is 'La La Land' by Demi Lovato, so neither of us own that either.**

**Chapter Five**

Ember's next class was science and to be quite honest, she didn't exactly know what to expect. After all, when you're a ghost, the majority of whatever science teaches usually goes out of the window. Shrugging and deciding to just roll with it, the girl headed inside the stuffy classroom and sat herself down onto the nearest empty seat.

"Emma, hey," greeted the goth girl that she had met earlier. Ember frowned and tried not to look too annoyed as the girl came and sat down in the seat next to her. Great, another lesson with one of Phantom's annoying team members- how typical.

"Yo," she greeted unenthusiastically, taking her make-do pencilcase out of her bag. "So, what's this class gonna be about?"

Sam shrugged. "I'm not sure, to be honest. I think it was DNA last time I checked, but I could be wrong. I rarely pay attention in this class, unless it's something I'd be remotely bothered about."

Ember snorted, "Just as long as they don't want my DNA, I'm fine." She wasn't even sure ghosts had DNA.

Sam gave her a suspicious look. "Uh... yeah. Not that testing your DNA would be a problem or anything, right? You being, y'know... human?"

Ember laughed nervously. Crud. The goth brat was on to her. "Y-yeah, exactly. Just...your average...everyday teenager…hehe."

Sam raised an eyebrow at the girl's sudden nervousness. "Hmmm. Just how average are you, Emma?"

"Hey! You tryna start something, dorkwad?" Ember exclaimed indignantly. She wasn't standing for this.

"That depends. Did you already start-" She stopped herself, regaining her composure. "You know, Rebmeville sounds like a good town. How do you spell it?"

Emma's eyes widened when she realised that she really _didn't_ know how to spell that. "Well, if you're _too dumb _to figure that out," she countered cockily, trying to conceal her unease, "why should _I_ bother telling _you_ how to spell it?"

"Well, it just sounds difficult to spell. And maybe my parents and I may go there, sometime. After all, you did say we'd probably like it."

Before Ember could think of a suitable response to that, she was interrupted by the Science teacher, Mrs. Jackson.

"Quiet down class and get your books out," the blonde teacher instructed, straightening out her white lab coat. "Today we will be doing a review of last week's topic: DNA."

For the rest of that lesson, neither girl spoke a word to each other unless they were asking to borrow a pen or pencil. The icy, but suspicious silence between the two didn't exactly go unnoticed by the other people in the class but they were, quite frankly, too terrified to ask what had happened.

Once the bell rang, Ember took the first opportunity to get away from the goth. She all but ran to the music room, making sure she wasn't followed. She sat back at the window and started a new song. The other one was mostly finished, so why not?

She came up with inspiration, and from there, it was easy sailing. She lost herself in the music, and paid little attention to what was around her. Suddenly, she felt someone's eyes on her and she stopped playing. Looking towards the door, she saw Danny staring straight at her, a mixture of astonishment and awe on his face.

She fought a blush and looked down, away from Danny.

Realising that she had noticed him, Danny's eyes widened, and he sputtered, "Oh, I, uh, sorry. I heard the music, and..."

Ember shrugged a little, still blushing. "It's cool, dipstick. I just...music is kinda my thing."

He nodded and walked inside the room. "I can tell. You're really good, Emma."

She raised an amused eyebrow. "Good? I guess I'll take that as a compliment, shall I?"

Danny nodded shyly. Wow. He had never realised before, but Emma was really beautiful when she was in her element. It almost seemed like she was born to play that guitar.

Emma laughed at how quiet the boy suddenly was. "You know you can sit down if you want? I don't bite...much." Danny was so cute when he was nervous. Wait, what? The dipstick wasn't _cute_! What was she_ thinking_?

Danny nodded, still bright red, and sat down on the seat next to her. Suddenly realising that he probably expected her to play something, the girl shut her eyes and started playing the song that she had recently completed and knew well.

"_I am confident, but I still have my moments_," she sang, a smile lighting up her face as she started enjoying herself. "_Baby, that's just me._" Halfway through the song, Ember had started really jamming on her guitar now and she'd forgotten Danny was still there. "_Well, some may say I need to be afraid of losing everything. Because of where I had my start and where I made my name...well everything's the same, in the la-la land machine, machine…"_

Danny meanwhile, was listening, captivated. She sounded...amazing. He hadn't heard this song before, so he was assuming that she had written it, but he could tell it held a special meaning to her. Then finally, the song started wrapping up and the boy was almost sad it was over.

"_Tell me do you feel the way I feel?_" she sang quietly, staring right at Danny.'"_Cause nothing else is real..._"

"In the la la land ape-e-eal," Danny finished for her, having taken a glance at her notes and seeing the line written down. Ember blinked and gave him a grin. The dipstick wasn't that bad at singing, actually. The two teenagers stared at each other blushing until finally, Ember realized how long she had been staring at the halfa and coughed awkwardly, causing Danny to leap out of his seat, flustered. "You're, uh, you're really good at that."

Ember smirked. "You're not so bad yourself, Danny."

Danny rubbed the back of his neck nervously and headed towards the door. "I should get back to Sam and Tucker. They'll think a ghost attacked, or... something." Not wanting to further embarrass himself, he sped out the door. Meanwhile, Ember watched the space the boy had been for a good ten minutes, a massive grin on her face. Maybe the dipstick wasn't so bad after all?

Danny walked back to the cafeteria, a grin on his face. Emma seemed like a pretty cool girl. He hoped they'd be able to be friends. Speaking of friends, when he got to their table, they were giving him strange looks.

"Dude, what happened?" Tucker asked.

Sam nodded. "Yeah. You've got that puppy dog look on your face that you used to give Paulina."

He rose an eyebrow, and said in a tone of disbelief, "Sam, I don't give that look at all, anymore."

"Well, either way, you seem like you're in a good mood. So spill, man! What happened?!"

He gave a content sigh, "I heard Emma singing."

Sam jumped up, expressing a glare, "Was she playing guitar, too?" He nodded, remembering how great the song was. She gasped, having her suspicions confirmed. "Danny, Emma is Ember McLain!"

He looked at her as if she had lost it, "Sam, there's no way Emma is Ember! Ember would've beaten me up by now! Besides, Emma... she's nice. She didn't give off a take over the world vibe."

"Rebmeville? Rebme is Ember backwards!"

"Coincidence!"

"Her music made you feel like you were hypnotized!"

"She's just really good! Jeez, Sam, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were jealous." He crossed his arms.

Tucker nodded, agreeing, "Yeah, you've gotten jealous of Danny before. Why not now?"

Sam exploded, unbelieving how her friends took Emma's side over hers, "You know what? Fine! If you guys can't see past pretty looks, I don't have to take this! I'm outta here!" With that, Sam took her food and left the table. Danny knew it was wrong to not believe her, but how could he when Emma showed no ghostly signs? He sighed, and ate his food unhappily, while Tucker gave him sympathetic looks.


	6. Chapter 6

**As I've been getting a lot of questions regarding this: This will be MAJOR DxE (Phantom Rocker), so if you don't like that kind of thing, you may not enjoy this much.**

**That being said, here's the next chapter. Enjoy! As always, the authors would like to thank anyone who has read, reviewed, favourited or followed this story. It means a lot to us and we hope to bring you more chapters in the weeks to come.**

**Disclaimer:**** To avoid confusion, nor Kasena or I own Danny Phantom (we're also from different sides of the globe so some spelling that looks wrong may actually be right in the other author's country). If one of us DID own Danny Phantom, then we'd be writing episodes for Season 4, not fanfiction. **

**Chapter Six**

"Sam, you can't still be angry at us!" Tucker exclaimed in P.E class that day. The girl still refused to talk to either of them and it was really starting to bug them.

"Yeah, Sam! I- I... I... I," Danny stopped mid-sentence when he noticed Emma walk past them. "S-sorry guys. What was I saying again?" he asked, a dazed look and a large grin on his face. Sam groaned at what she was forced to put up with, though she didn't know what she expected, to be honest. Being friends with two boys, she was pretty used to this by now.

"You really like her, don't you?" Tucker asked, grinning and his blushing friend.

Danny looked at his friend in surprise. "W-what? She's...alright, I guess."

The techno-geek laughed loudly. "The tomato red face says otherwise, dude."

"UGH! Do you two just HEAR yourselves?" Sam exclaimed angrily, bashing her foot onto the floor as an angry gesture. "That's EMBER for Ghost Zone's sake! What's WRONG with you two?!"

Danny gave Sam an irritated look. "Sam, that's not funny. If she really _was_ Ember, you don't think she would have tried something evil by now? Or even set off my ghost sense? Give it a rest, would ya?"

Before Sam could try to defend herself, Ms. Tetslaff tweeted her whistle, and the gym was silent. "Alright, worms. We're going to play a little game that's gonna toughen you up." She pulled a red rubber ball out from behind her back, with a feral grin, "Dodgeball." She pointed at multiple people, "You, you, you, you, and you. Team A." Sam and Tucker nodded at each other, acknowledging they had both gotten on the same team. Tetslaff pointed at five more people, "Team B. The rest of you, be ready to sub in. Once subs are out, that's it."

Danny and Ember grinned, they were on Team B. They got into position, ready to play. The whistle sounded, followed by Tetslaff's shout of, "Play ball!"

Each team jumped, and reached for a ball. Within the first minute, three people had gotten out, and three people came in to substitute for them. Ember and Danny were hardly breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, Sam was matching their speed with minimal effort. Tucker was out early on. Players came and went until it was Dash and Sam on Team A, and Ember and Danny on Team B.

Dash was the only one confused as he shouted out, "How has Fenton lasted so long? He's so scrawny!"

Glaring at him, Ember took no hesitation in throwing the dodgeball in her hand at the blonde. He held his nose, trying to glare at her past the hurt. He walked off the court, sagging. Danny looked at her, surprised, "Wow, wasn't that a little harsh?" Ember looked back at him, wanting to respond, but was interrupted when Danny glanced towards Sam, and pushed her away, "Look out!"

She gasped, and watched as Danny got hit in the arm by the ball Sam had tried to throw at her. "Dude, what the heck?! You should've stayed in!"

He waved it off, "Nah, it'd be an unfair way to win. Besides," he whispered, "I wouldn't be able to take her down, anyway. Just like I wouldn't take down Tucker."

She watched as he went to sit next to the technology geek, and glared at Sam. She grabbed a ball from the ground, and growled, "What's your _problem?_"

Sam mimicked her, "I know who you are, _that's_ my problem!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"You shouldn't have messed with us."

"You don't know anything! You're just being jealous!"

"And you're just manipulating him, cause he's being stupid and can't see how evil you are!" At this, Ember lost it and threw the ball in her hands. It was too fast for Sam to catch, so all she could do was throw up her arms. She got knocked onto her back by the force of the throw.

Ember walked over to her, and gave her a threatening glare, "Don't you _ever_ say that, again. _Ever._" On the last word, her eyes flashed a neon green, and then she left for the locker room.

Sam, shocked, asked Danny and Tucker, "Did you guys see that?"

Tucker guffawed, "You get your butt handed to you? Yeah! I should've gotten it on video! Oh wait, I did!"

Sam glowered, "You better delete that." He gulped, and pressed some buttons until a 'beep' was heard. They then walked to their respective locker rooms, with Sam keeping her distance from Ember.

**XXX**

"Not quite there yet, Writer. I have a lot to deal with y'know, without having you breathing down my neck!" Ember whispered angrily, making her way to the janitor's closet, neglecting to realise that there was already someone in there. Swinging the door open, Emma rushed in and gasped at what she saw. There, crouched down and bleeding everywhere was none other than Danny, in human form.

"D-Danny? What happened to you?" she exclaimed, crouching down next to him. She knew that ghosts tended to give him a hard time, but she never expected anything like... this!

Danny looked up from his bloody leg that she now realised had a large gash in it and gave her a weak smile. "Hey, if you think this is bad... you should see the other guy."

Emma frowned. "You really shouldn't be joking about this, dipstick. Now gimme some of that gauze," she said, gesturing towards the first aid kit that was conveniently next to the boy.

Reluctantly, Danny complied and handed it to her. "Look, Emma, I... this isn't what…"

He cut himself off when he saw Emma shake her black haired head. "Don't bother, Danny. I don't think I wanna know." Grabbing the roll of gauze, Ember ripped a large amount off and layed it down onto the floor. Then, she found a piece of cloth inside the first aid kit and dipped it into the mop bucket and started cleaning the gash with it. Danny winced at the pain, but otherwise said nothing.

"Sorry, but it's gonna hurt a bit," she told him bluntly, not taking her eyes away from the cut she was cleaning. It really did look awful. The boy was only a teenager after all, just like her. This didn't look fair to her that he seemed pretty used to this.

"I... had no idea the ghosts gave you this much trouble…" she muttered, feeling a little ashamed of herself. How badly hurt had he been after the fights he'd had with her and her guitar?

Danny gave her a shocked look and the rocker saw his body tense. "How did you," he took a sharp intake of breath and winced at the pain his gash was giving him, "...know it was ghosts? I never mentioned any ghosts before."

Ember gulped and smiled nervously at him. "Well... your last name is Fenton, so I figured... you had something to do with the Fenton ghost hunters?"

The halfa laughed nervously at her. "He... he... yeah."

Ember smiled a little at the nervous boy next to her, in an attempt at reassurance, and started wrapping the boy's leg up with the gauze. "You might wanna wear some jeans or something to cover that bandage. Don't want anyone to see, right?"

He gave her an appreciative look and she stared up at him, blushing like crazy. Pretty soon, Danny started doing the same.

"Well," Danny said after a while, "I guess we should go, as fun as bleeding to death in the janitor's closet is."

Ember chuckled and stood up to open the door. "Haha, right. We've got detention now anyway." She rolled her eyes as she said the word 'detention', as if the very idea of it was the most pathetic thing in the world. Danny couldn't exactly say he disagreed. Before the two left the room though, Danny turned to the new girl and gave her a shy smile. "Uh... Emma?"

The girl turned around to look at him. "Yeah, babypop?"

"Thanks," he told her. "You're a good friend." Then, he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Though I'd kinda appreciate it if you didn't mention this to anyone. You know, a dude's gotta have some pride."

Ember laughed and walked out of the door and into the busy hall. "Sure, dipstick. Sure." Before the young hero could say anything else, he lost sight of Emma in the crowds of students.

He went to his locker, grabbing his things out, when Tucker came up to him, "So, why, exactly is it that you got detention?"

Danny looked at Tucker with the most serious face he could manage, and explained, "I told an ice pun."

The boy with the beret sighed, "We keep tellin' ya, all these puns will get you in trouble."

He held his hands up in defense, "Not my fault. She said something about fire." He thought with a frown, "In fact, she was acting like it was some big inside joke." He shrugged, "Oh, well. Probably nothing. See ya, Tuck." He walked into Lancer's room, and saw Lancer reading from Hamlet.

He marked Danny on the attendance, and continued. Danny began to zone out until Ember's voice pulled him back, "You know, Mr. Lancer. I bet Danny would absolutely love Hamlet. It's about a kid who has a step-dad, his uncle, and the uncle killed the dad. Now, the kid is trying to get revenge."

Danny frowned. That had reminded him of a scenario, but he couldn't remember what. Of course, Ember smirked. Back when she was with Skulker, he wouldn't stop complaining about how he couldn't get the kid cause Plasmius wanted him as his own spawn.

Lancer nodded, "Mr. Fenton, you could benefit from this. Maybe raise your grade."

He continued with them occasionally taking notes. Neither of them would admit it, but they found it to be fascinating.

**XXX**

Ember called to the apartment, "Honey, I'm home!" Dani came to the living room giving her a perplexed look. The ghost rolled her eyes, "Before your time, kiddo. Sorry I got held up. Freakin' Fenton got me stuck in detention."

Dani laughed, "How'd he do that?"

Ember pouted before answering, "He made me laugh." Dani giggled, making Ember snap at her, "And just what is so funny?!"

"It was the puns, wasn't it? They always get us in trouble." The us made Ember stop.

"You said us, that time. How are you and him related, anyway?" She asked the young halfa. She froze, as her eyes grew wide as dinner plates, before shifting downwards. Her hand crept up to rub the back of her neck while the other fiddled with her sweatshirt.

"Mntllowdttllyu," She muttered.

Ember rose an eyebrow, "What was that?"

Dani sighed, and with better coherency, said "I'm not allowed to."

The teen frowned and crossed her arms. "What? You're not making any sense! Not allowed to...what?"

Dani plopped herself down onto the couch and buried her face in her hands. "He called it...classified."

Ember cocked a black eyebrow in confusion and took a seat next to the distraught halfa. "Who's...he? Why can't you tell me?"

"Because I CAN'T, OKAY?" she exclaimed, salty tears seeping through her fingers. "You're... going to think I'm... a f-f-freak," she whispered, so quiet that the rocker almost missed it. "J-just... like a-a-all the others d-did."

Ember watched the girl's reaction in shock. She had only asked an innocent question, but maybe there was more to the truth than she thought.

"You... shouldn't assume stuff, you know." she said softly, putting a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder. "How do you know... how I'll react, unless you tell me?"

Dani didn't say anything, but she didn't need to. Ember could tell that she was having a mental argument with herself as to whether to tell the truth and by the way the girl's shoulders had started to sag, she could tell which side had won.

"Clone." That one word. That one, muttered word, was all the rockstar ghost needed to hear to understand everything. She tensed, still not releasing her hold from Dani. Now she understood why this girl reminded her so much of Danny, why she looked so terrified of being called a 'freak' and most importantly...why she was all on her own.

"_He_... c-created me... and others, to be... t-the p-perfect half-ghost child," she told her, looking up at Ember with fearful, tear filled eyes. "Even though I... was the only stable one, I wasn't g-good enough. I... _loved _him... and s-still do, but he hurt me...and l-l-left me to... _die._"

Ember felt her heart constrict at just how _familiar _that sounded.

"Who? Who's_ he_?" she asked bitterly through clenched teeth, though she already had a feeling that she knew who it was.

"P-P-Plasmius. But please... don't freak out! I'm totally normal, I am! I just-" her panicked excuses were cut off by two thin arms wrapping around her into a hug. Usually, Ember wasn't one for hugs, but from what she could tell, the girl really needed one. Dani started sobbing tears of happiness as she hugged Ember back. Despite knowing the truth, the ghost still didn't think any less of her and she appreciated that more than the ghost herself could ever realise.

"Now, what do you say we have some dinner now, yeah?" Ember asked Dani, as she let go. The girl nodded, blinking away the remainder of her tears, as the rockstar made her way into the kitchen. Ember, before she left the room though, vowed that she would make Plasmius _pay_ for making a little girl suffer like that. Yes, he was going to pay _dearly_. She'd make sure of it, even if it meant teaming up with the dipstick, which didn't sound as bad as it should have, she mentally admitted with a frown. At the same time, Dani let out a sigh of relief and laid back on the soft couch. Someone had actually accepted her as she was. The only other person that had done that was, well, her original. Ember knew she was a clone, but didn't think anything less of her either. She didn't know _why_ the rockstar was so different from the others, but she couldn't say she cared. With that thought in mind, the girl grabbed the TV remote and started flipping through the channels with a massive grin on her face.

**XXX**

Ember sighed, and entered the classroom. She had agreed to come into lunch to help out Lancer. Maybe if she did so, she could speed this up a bit. After all, she _really_ needed that book and she was sick of Ghost Writer breathing down her neck.

"Alright, Lancer, what do you want me to do?" She was ready to get this over with.

He hid a smirk as he handed her a stack of papers. "One of my classes recently completed a test. They were to describe themselves using any form of poem they like. I need you to grade them for me. Think you can manage?"

Ember readily took both the stack and the challenge, yet tried to keep her voice neutral, "Alright." She sat at her desk, marking papers and trying to not smile. Five minutes until lunch ended, she gave the papers back to him, "Here you go. I marked some kids with a good grade cause they used less common forms of poetry. I gave that kid a fail cause that ain't any type of poetry, no matter how many lame rhymes they tried."

Lancer gladly took the papers from her, and remarked, "You know, I believe only someone well versed in literature, or at least poetry, would have known about that."

She stuttered, "Well, actually- I- the thing is-" She was interrupted by a buzz in her ear and she stepped away, "Sorry, my Lit friend." She pressed her earring, and asked in a hushed tone, "What do you want, Writer?"

"...Do you-"

"No, I don't. I'll tell you when I do. Bye." She turned back to Lancer, and explained using half-truths, "Sorry, my friend really wants to get that book. He's kinda a nerd about these things. He has a personal library, and I guess this'll complete his collection."

Lancer thought for a moment, and nodded, "If you come to book club committed tomorrow, I may put some thought into letting your friend- and I can't believe I'm about to say this- have the book."

She gasped, "Really?! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

He chuckled, "Well, nothing's decided. Yet."

She did her best to remain on the ground, as she rushed through the halls, thinking nothing could bring her mood down. "Emma?" Like that, it deflated as she saw Danny staring at her, "You look like you're having a good day."

She nodded, "I, uh, I guess I was."

"Was? Does that mean you aren't anymore?"

She shrugged, and lied, "My parents are looking for a certain book in town, and they think they may have found it. If they did, that means that I go back home. I guess I just remembered that would mean actually having to leave..."

He frowned, and pouted, "So then, you're going home?"

She waved her hands, denying it, "No! At least, not yet. We don't know if it's the real deal, yet. Once we do, you'll be the first to know. I promise." She smiled and gave him a quick hug before running off to computers.

Sam, seeing, but not hearing, what had just transpired, slammed her locker door closed. She was not going to get that ghost diva get away with this. She just needed a plan.


	7. Chapter 7

**Another update! AND it's longer than it usually is. Aren't you guys lucky? For all of the people that decided to stick around despite the DxE, Enjoy! Both writers love you all! As always, reviews are much appreciated and every favourite and follow counts! ^^**

_**Disclaimer**__**: Neither I, nor Kasena own Danny Phantom or any of the character in this fanfiction, because that is all it is: FANfiction. If this was actually canon, it would totally rock, though.**_

**Chapter Seven**

Ember, not noticing Sam, sped off towards the computer room and sat down into the seat she had sat in when she had first had this class.

"Hey, beautiful!" Tucker greeting with a wink as he saw the girl sit down.

Ember rolled her eyes and tried, with difficulty, to turn the computer on. "Yo."

"What's up? You look a little down." Tucker commented, a confused look on his face.

"Huh?" Emma asked, realising that she had been sadly staring off into space. "O-oh, I'm...fine," she told him, distractedly fiddling with the buttons on the device. "It's just that I might be moving back home soon."

The techno-geek let out a dramatic gasp. "W-what? But we haven't even gone out, yet!"

Emma let out a little chuckle. She was slowly getting used to him and his weirdness now, as weird as that was. "I told you before, dorkwad, never gonna happen. You're just not my type."

The boy raised an interested eyebrow and leaned closer to her desk. "So...who _is_ your type? Danny?"

The girl's eyes went wide. "W-WHAT? When did I... what are... _shut up_, Tucker!"

Tucker laughed and turned his own computer on. "You can deny it all you want, Em, but I've seen the way he looks at you," he said as he begun typing things into his keyboard.

Ember gave him an incredulous look. "What're you talking about, dipstick?"

The boy smirked at her, which, for the first time in her afterlife, made her feel very scared of the geek. "You might not have noticed, but he's got this one longing puppy dog stare that he keeps giving you."

Ember laughed. "You don't know what you're talking about."

She watched the boy nod his bereted head in confirmation. "He's my best friend! I know him. The dude's got it bad for you, Em."

Blushing a bright crimson, the girl turned back to her computer. "Ha... ha...maybe we should get back to the computers, now?" she suggested nervously, subconsciously playing with her bangs as she tried to change the subject. "Mr. Davidson mentioned something about...databases, or...something."

Tucker gave her an are-you-kidding-me look and then gasped as he realised something. "Oh...my God. You-"

"Don't say it!" she growled, knowing full well what was coming next.

"-have a thing for Danny, don't you?" The boy was practically bouncing in his seat now.

"No I don't!" she exclaimed stubbornly, beginning to aggressively type something into the keyboard.

"Then why are you blushing?"

"It's just really hot in here!" she replied, fanning herself with her hand as if to cool herself down.

"Just admit it, Emma. If you're leaving anyway, what does it even matter?"

Ember sighed heavily. "Fine," she muttered. "I like him...a lot. Not that it matters anyway, like you said." She said that last part sadly, especially when she thought about how Danny didn't know who she really was. In a way, this was really unfair. She was going to go home, give the book to writer and Ember and Phantom would either never see each other again or would go back to being enemies.

Tucker frowned at the girl's sudden downcast attitude. Though he did brighten up at the idea that the girl Danny liked actually liked him back. Once he told him, he was sure Danny would be ecstatic. Ember returned herself from her sad musings with an angry glare at Tucker.

"You tell him…" she growled, pointing an accusatory finger at him, "...and you _die_. Got that, jerkwad?"

Tucker gulped and nodded nervously. "Y-yup. Got... it."

With that, Ember nodded in satisfaction and turned back to her computer. Now, how did you turn these things on again?

Meanwhile, Sam was creating her own plan. She just needed to get into Fenton Works, and she could reveal Ember for the lying snake she was.

**XXX**

The four were back in homeroom, chatting amongst themselves. When they came in, Ember put her foot in the aisle, causing Danny to fall over it, and her to comment, "Did you have a nice trip, dipstick? Didn't think I'd see you until the fall!" Sam was the farthest from Ember as possible. Ember and Danny, unfortunately, had started a pun contest. "You know, pyrotechnics heavily ignited my interest."

"I was going to step into a bucket of ice, but I got cold feet."

"A contest held by firefighters is called a match."

"For those who live in ice, it'snow problem."

Trying to cover up a laugh, she said, "Give it up, dipstick, talking about fire and ice will be a pretty heated argument."

He retorted, "Not if I give you the cold shoulder!"

They continued on like this for a while. Sam and Tucker, on the other hand, were having a much more serious discussion. "Sam, I'm telling you, Emma is not Ember!"

Sam groaned, "Tucker, how can she not be? Look at them! She's obviously manipulating him!"

When the two smiled, holding in laughs, Tucker looked back to Sam with a helpless look, "Sam, they're just two people. I don't think Ember would fall that hard for Danny. I don't think _Ember_ would blush as much as she does around him. I don't think **Ember** would last five minutes without pounding him. Just give it up. They honestly like each other. In fact, she kinda told me, last class…"

"She WHAT?!" Sam immediately stormed over to the two, "Listen, you, I know what you're-"

"Woah, Sam, chill out."

Ember held her hands out, "Woah, yeah, Sam, no need to get steamed up." Ember giggled, then gasped, her face turning to shock and horror. "No! No, that doesn't count! She interrupted us!"

Danny cracked a grin and held a hand up to his ear, "What was that? Was that, a laugh?! Ladies and gentlemen, the King of Puns!"

Ember acted disappointed, even though her similar smile told otherwise, "Nooo! You cheated! I am the Queen of Puns! You are a false king! I demand a recount!"

Sam disgusted, shouted over them, "Knock it _off!_ You don't have to pretend anymore, I know your dirty little secret, Ember!"

Ember rolled her eyes, "This, again? I'm not pretending anything, and my name's not Ember! It's Emma!

Sam smirked, "Oh, really? What, can't _remember_ your own name?" Ember held back a shocked gasp. Oh, this little twerp was gonna get it. "It's sad that you've gotta manipulate him this much. I mean faking liking somebody? That's low, even for you."

At this, Ember did gasp. What Sam had said brought back memories of the night she was stood up. She tried to blink back the tears, but they kept coming. She turned away and grabbed her bag, wiping her eyes and smudging her make-up. "I wouldn't ever fake _liking_ somebody, but fine." Her voice began to waver, "If that's what you think, then… then I'll just go!" With that, she ran out, trying to wipe the tears away. Was she faking it? Was she manipulating him? No, of course not!

She shook her head, trying to get the confusing thoughts out as she kept running until she ran back to the apartment.

**XXX**

The two boys turned to Sam and glared at her.

"Wow, Sam. That was harsh," Tucker commented quietly. "I can't believe you made her cry!"

The girl put her hands on her hips and glared back at Tucker. "Oh, come _on_!" she exclaimed angrily. "She's crying because she knows I've caught her out! You two should be _thanking_ me right now for stopping her from playing with Danny's affections!"

Danny, who had been strangely quiet throughout this whole thing, looked up at Sam with a frown. "She never _was_ playing with my affections, Sam," he said quietly, all signs of humour from the pun contest gone. "Don't you get it?" he said a bit louder. "The way you made her _cry _is living proof of that. So what if I happen to really like her? She's a great person!"

Sam gasped, eyebrows lowered into her own frown. "But she's evil! You can't seriously-"

"Seriously, Sam," Danny interrupted her sternly. "Stop. I'm gonna go find her and fix the mess that _you_ caused." Before either of his friends could say anything else, the boy stood up and made his way out of the school. He knew that Sam was his best friend and he shouldn't have snapped at her, but at the same time, he didn't like that she'd made someone he considered a friend, or maybe even _more_, burst into tears like that. He knew Sam was worried for him, but she really had no need to be. As soon as he walked through the school gates, Danny called forth his ghost half with a quiet "Goin' ghost…" and sped off into the sky in search for the girl.

"Ember?" Dani asked, hearing the door to the apartment slam shut. "You're home early. I thought-" The girl stopped mid-sentence when she saw the state of the teenager in the lounge. Ember was in a lounged position on the couch on her stomach, with her face buried into her arms, sobbing.

"Ember? What's wrong?" she asked, worriedly. The ghost rock star was always the one that had it all together, that would look after _her_ when _she_ was crying- not the other way around! Something wasn't right. Ember never cried, at least, not as far as she knew. This had to be a big deal. The teenager didn't say anything and just continued to sob into the, now soaking, couch.

"Look, I don't know what happened, but it can't be that-" she was interrupted by another bout of sobbing from the rockstar._ 'Alright,'_ Dani mentally admitted,_ 'I'm not good at this sympathising stuff.'_ It was time to use a different approach.

"Ember McLain!" She said sternly. "Talk to me, dangit!" Dani tried, shaking the girl's shoulder. "You're better than this! Get a _grip_, girl! You're THE Ember McLain! You don't cry!"

Ember's breath hitched. The pipsqueak was right. She was Ember McClain! She _never_ cried, _ever_. She needed to get a grip. She'd been hanging around these humans too long and they were starting to rub off on her. Sitting up on the couch, the girl wiped the remaining mascara from her eyes and patted the young halfa on the head affectionately. "Thanks, mini-dipstick. I needed that."

Dani let out a sigh of relief. "Well, glad that's over. You were starting to scare me."

Ember leaned back on the couch. "I was starting to scare myself, actually. It's just...ugh!" She stared up at the ceiling. "That girl's really got it in for me, not that I really blame her. But still..." she muttered.

Dani glanced up at her friend sympathetically. "What girl? What happened?"

Ember sighed and started fiddling with her bangs again. "You know Sam, right? The goth chic?" Dani nodded. "She figured out who I am and she thinks I'm trying to manipulate Danny."

Dani raised an eyebrow. "_Are_ you?"

Ember made an incredulous noise. "Ha, no! Of course not! I would never do something like that!"

"Then...I don't get it," Dani commented. "If you _know_ you're not tricking him, why are you so upset?"

Ember let out a deep sigh and stared down at the carpet in shame. "She compared me to the kind of person that fakes liking somebody and I guess it...brought back bad memories... of my... death."

The halfa gave the teen a sad look, even though she knew she couldn't see it. "I wish Danny were here…" she whispered sadly.

Ember nodded in agreement and replied without really thinking about it, "Yeah, me too."

Dani sighed and then gasped when she realised something. "Wait...what?" She thought Ember _hated_ her 'cousin'.

"I _said_," Ember replied with a sigh, turning to look at the bewildered girl, "that I wish Danny was here, too." This time, the rocker couldn't conceal the blush colouring her cheeks when she thought of Danny and his dreamy baby blue eyes…

Dani gasped and started actually jumping up and down on the couch. "Ember, do you..._like _Danny?"

The rocker quirked an eyebrow. "What..?" The look of confusion quickly melted into a smirk. "Hehe... is it really that obvious?"

Dani giggled. "Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed. "How did that even happen? You used to hate him! What happe-"

Ember ignored the questions and rolled her eyes, though she still had a small smile on her face, and made her way to the kitchen. "I'm gonna make dinner."

"Hey, wait! Ember! Spill!"

**XXX**

The next day, Danny tiredly walked into school and slumped himself down into his seat in humanities. He had been up all night searching for Emma, but she seemed to have just vanished. Taking a look at the seat next to him, Danny sighed. Emma hadn't shown up for school today and he was pretty sure he knew why.

"What, no Ms. McLain today?" Mr Lancer asked the boy as he walked past the two desks. If Danny didn't know any better, he'd swear that Lancer sounded almost...disappointed.

The boy sighed. "No, Mr. Lancer. I haven't seen her all day." _'I doubt I'll ever see her again, either.' _Danny thought miserably as he saw the teacher leave.

Two hours later, Danny was stuffing an assortment of books he couldn't be bothered reading into his locker, still feeling rather downcast. He knew it wasn't his fault that she was gone, but he still felt somewhat responsible. Maybe if he had-

"Hey dude!" Greeted Tucker, approaching his friend as cheerfully as he could, in the hopes that he could, perhaps, lighten his friend's mood.

"Hey, Tuck. Still no sign of her?" he asked sadly. Tucker didn't need telling who 'her' was.

"No, man. I'm sorry," he said. "Oh, I saw Sam earlier."

"...Yeah? She's not still mad at me, is she?" the boy asked, slamming his locker shut.

His best friend shook his head and put a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder. "It didn't look it. She told me that she's got something big planned at lunch after book club and she wants us to meet her in the football field."

"Something... big planned?" Danny asked, raising an eyebrow.

Tucker nodded. "Yeah, we better meet her there later. Don't wanna face her wrath, y'know?" Danny chuckled a little, knowing just what kind of _wrath _Sam would make Tucker endure, via her combat boots.

Meanwhile, Ember walked through the halls as quietly as she could. While she had mostly gotten past what had happened yesterday, she still didn't want to draw attention to herself. She walked to Lancer's classroom and set her stuff down. She made sure to come for book club. Better to get this over and done with, so she could go home. "Oh. Ms. McLain. I didn't see you in first period, today."

She nodded, keeping her head down, "Yeah, sorry, I was… working through some things." Once Sam walked in, she stopped talking. She didn't want to incur the goth's wrath, anymore than she already had.

Sam saw the ghost's reaction and smirked. She was probably thinking of ways to get revenge, when really, she'd be the one Sam gets revenge on. _'Oh sweet, sweet irony,'_ she thought venomously. Lancer lent Ember a copy of Hamlet, and she thanked him with a gracious smile. She skipped to where Lancer had left off during detention the other day, and continued reading.

Ember gasped, and exclaimed, "I knew it! Ooh, you're gonna pay for that, Claud." The book club then started, and they went around asking the standard questions, 'Who read to here, What do you think of this, Should the author have done something different?'

After it was over, everyone but Ember and Sam dispersed, going to their classes. Ember looked hopefully up at Lancer, and he chuckled, "I must say, Emma, even I am surprised about this outcome. I trust the book will be in safe hands."

She eagerly nodded, "Don't worry, Mr. Lancer, it will be!" She carefully packed the book in her book bag and turned to the door, only to see Sam waiting for her.

"Hey, Emma." She frowned when the ghost walked past her, then caught up, "Listen, I'm sorry for all that stuff yesterday. You just really remind me of someone who hurt my friends and I. If you come out to the football field, I can make it up to you."

She asked her, warily, "How will you do that?"

She grinned, "You're not going to find out if you don't follow me." She took off, towards the field, with Ember reluctantly following.

**Aaaaand there you have the latest chapter! Also, since some of you have been asking, I figured I'd let you know something I had been planning on keeping under wraps. The fic that I'll be uploading once I've uploaded all of this one will be MAJOR Badger Cereal and will come chronologically after this one and 'Trapped With The Enemy'. It's going to be called 'A Week With The Enemy', so look out for it! You Badger Cereal fans will love it, probably as much as we enjoyed writing it. Well, we hope so anyway. Thanks for reading, and I'll try to update again soon!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey again, readers! A longer update today, since this fic is almost done. By 'almost' I literally mean that this fic is officially completed and that this is the last chapter! Woo! Can you believe we made it to eight chapters? The authors would like to thank anyone who stuck around to read the rest of this, and we promise a lot more content in the future in the form of other collabs from us! If you want to read those when they're published, be sure to follow this account for updates. Without further ado, enjoy the final chapter! Reviews, favourites and follows are always appreciated and are great motivators to write more. :)**

_**Disclaimer:**__** Neither I, nor Kasena actually own Danny Phantom and we have no idea where you may have gotten that misconception. Now, onto the story!**_

**Chapter Eight**

When the two finally arrived at the empty football pitch, Ember saw Danny and Tucker standing there waiting for them. "Hey guys!" She called, thankful to see some people that actually liked her, at least as far as she knew. Danny walked over to them and was just about to greet them, when his eyes, as well as Tuckers, went wide and she saw Danny's body tense.

"W-what's wro-AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" she cut herself off with a high pitched scream and she felt like her insides were getting ripped out. What was going on? Was this a trick? Collapsing to her knees, Emma twisted her neck around to see Sam behind her, wearing what looked like a Fenton Invention. "W-what..?"

Sam smirked, the gun-like part of the device still trained on her. "The Fenton Ghost Peeler- ripping apart your charade, one molecule at a time."

In her dazed state, the ghostly teenager had no idea what was going on, but she knew it must be bad for Danny and Tucker to look so horrified.

"I... can't believe it!" she vaguely heard Tucker exclaim. "Sam was... RIGHT?"

Feeling a weird tingling sensation all over her body, she looked at her hands. They were suddenly really grey and she was wearing one of her favourite black gloves. That didn't make sense though. She didn't remember putting them on, since they were part of her..._ghost rocker look!_ That goth brat was ripping apart her human disguise! Just when Ember thought she couldn't take it anymore, the burning pain stopped and she stood up shakily, already feeling the heat of her flaming hair returning.

"Look at her, Danny," Sam's smug voice said from behind her. "There's _Emma_. She's been lying to you this whole time."

Danny didn't say anything, choosing to just stare at Ember with a frown on his face. The girl, in response, couldn't meet his gaze and chose to just stare at the grass below her feet ashamedly. The tension was so thick, you could have cut it with a knife.

"Sam, I can't believe you just did that to her," Danny spoke up suddenly, in an incredulous tone.

Sam's eyebrows shot up. "WHAT? I was trying to_ prove_ to you that she's a_ lying snake_! You can't seriously be _defending_ her! She's...EMBER!"

Ember turned to glare at her. "Yeah, dipstick. I think we all get that."

Danny turned to Sam again. "Sam, I know you think I'm clueless and naive, but…"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "But…?"

He sighed and turned to smile at Ember. "I actually already knew all along."

The three of them all let out a collective gasp, Ember's probably being the loudest. "WHAT?!"

"How... long have you known?" Ember asked, voice very high pitched in shock.

Danny shrugged and blushed. "Ever since the singing thing. I only know one person that can sing like that."

Sam glared at him. "And you didn't DO anything?"

The boy shrugged again. "Well, she hadn't done anything evil yet, so I wanted to wait and see what she'd do."

Tucker shut his already gaping mouth and gave Danny a quizzical look. "You mean, you never actually had a crush on her?"

Danny frowned again. "What? I- the crush... thing sort of... happened by accident."

Ember couldn't help beaming at that. "Ditto…" she muttered, though through the silence, Danny heard her and blushed bright crimson.

"Well that's all well and good," the techno-geek said, straightening his red beret, "but what are you even _doing_ here?"

Ember sighed and sat herself down onto one of the wooden benches. "It's complicated, but Ghost Writer wanted me to get this lame book for him from Mr. Lancer in exchange for not destroying my guitar." She turned to glare at Sam again. "Nothing _evil _ or_ manipulative _about it, dorkwad!"

Sam rolled her eyes. "Right. As if you would go through _all _this trouble for a _book_. I'm not buying it."

Ember growled at her. "You don't _have_ to believe me. In fact, call me a liar all you want because I don't even care! Once Ghost Writer gets his book, I ain't coming back to Amity aga-"

She was interrupted by a loud **BANG** followed by maniacal laughter. It was Plasmius...and he was here for revenge. "Ah, Daniel. How... unpleasant to see you," he greeted sinisterly, floating over to the teenagers. "Tell me, have you met my friend? He's been just _dying_ to beat you."

**XXX**

Before any of the teens could question who the 'friend' was, Vlad snapped his fingers, and a giant grey monster appeared in front of them, his body seeming almost disproportionate, and lopsided.

"Don't you mean meet?"

"No. I don't. Golem, _atako_." He pointed at Danny, and the golem obeyed, running towards him. Danny surveyed his surroundings, then transformed. He punched the golem in the chest.

The golem showed no reaction, while Danny pulled his hand back, wincing. "What is this thing, made of rock?!"

"Yes." Danny flew back, a result of being punched by the golem. He shot at it, and let out a triumphant yell when a small amount of rock fell away.

Vlad, mildly alarmed, flipped to a page in the book he was holding, and read from it, _" Golem monstro, auxskultu mian ordonon. Ŝildo vin de fantomo kaj viro_!_"_ Ember squinted, and gasped. The book he held was titled 'The Time of Now!'

Ember tried to run to her bag, but collapsed under her own weight. She tried to get up, but couldn't. She heard Sam taunting her, "You can't get up cause the Fenton Ghost Peeler steals ghost energy!"

Meanwhile, Danny shot even more at the golem, but it no longer affected it. Worriedly, he flew around it, trying to avoid his attacks.

"Sam, you don't get it," Ember tried to reason desperately to the goth. "If I can't get to my bag, I can't help!"

"Help who? Plasmius? Like I'm going to trust you!"

"No, I'm going to help Danny! If I don't, he'll die!" She looked up at the girl, wishing for mercy.

Sam paused, sighed, then called to Tucker, "Go grab her bag."

He did so, and set it down in front of her. "This is a copy of what he's reading. If he is getting the spells from there, I might be able to counter it." She took a breath, and opened the book. It seemed like a normal book, except every few pages, there were phrases in Esperanto. Thanking Clockwork that she knew Esperanto, she looked for the right spell. Finding something that was worthy of their situation, she called out, _"Ho golemo, auxskultu min nun, ŝalti vian sinjoron, jam klinas!"_

Immediately, there was a shift in its behavior, and it aimed for both Danny and Vlad, instead of just the one. She grinned as he was taken by surprise and thrown here and there. "That's for leaving her to die!" She growled to the oldest halfa, much to the confusion of everyone else. Glaring, Vlad managed to dodge the golem and shoot a powerful blast of ectoplasm at her. The rockstar ghost attempted to block the blast he threw at her, but she found she couldn't, she ducked, waiting for the inevitable collision, only to look up and see Danny in front of her, creating a shield.

"I don't know what you're doing, but do it faster!"

She nodded, flipping through for something that could stop him, when Danny was slammed into the ground next to her. After a moment, he didn't get up, and her breath caught in her throat. With renewed vigor, she scanned until she finally found it. She shouted out, "_Reiru al la radiko, kaj revenu al tero, atenti ne havas estrojn, Atentu neniu sono!"_

The effect was obvious, as it batted at Plasmius half-heartedly. Panting, seeing that his plan had failed, he flew away, vowing to return.

Ember rose from the ground, unsteadily, and walked over to where Danny had landed.

"Hey, you okay, Danny?" she asked worriedly. The boy squinted an eye open and gave her that cute smile of his.

"Hey, you just... called me Danny," he rasped out. "What... happened to dipstick?"

The girl shrugged and, smiling in relief that the boy was okay, held her hand out for him, of which he gladly took. Once Danny was finally stood upright, Ember got to glance at how his friends were doing. Sam was stood next to Tucker, a perplexed look on her face.

"I... don't get it," she muttered, crossing her arms. "Why did you choose to help us over Plasmius? You've got nothing to gain from it."

Ember sighed in irritation. "Haven't you been listening... to _anything _I've been saying? You lot aren't so bad. Even _Tucker_ is tolerable."

Tucker gave her a half-hearted glare. "Hey! I resent that!"

Sam, despite how much she couldn't stand the girl, found herself laughing at that.

"Besides, the dude had what was coming to him, the jerk. What kind of person tries _cloning _anyway? Dude's just messed up," she mumbled, too quiet for anyone to hear.

"So are you gonna go back to the Ghost Zone, for good, now that you've got the book?" Tucker asked, a sad expression on his face. The girl sighed and shrugged helplessly. She really didn't know anymore, to be honest. Even though she missed home, she'd also, in a weird way, kind of enjoyed herself in the Human World. It was better than plotting 'take over the world' schemes or just hanging out in the her lair.

"Hey, Ember?" Danny asked, turning to look at the musical ghost. "Thanks for...helping us with the Golem. I'd probably be road pizza if you hadn't stepped in." The girl smiled at him, blushing bright green.

"It's alright, dipstick. I hadn't put up with you for almost a week just for you to die on me, did I?" The two ghosts grinned at each other, both blushing a bright ecto-green.

"Can we go now?" Sam asked impatiently. She didn't know how much more of their blushing she could take. "We're gonna be late for Lancer's class."

The boys nodded and that was when Danny realised something. "Uh, Ember? You're still holding my hand."

She winked at him. "And why's that a problem?" Giving him a quick peck on the cheek, she sped off into the sky, not waiting to see Danny's reaction, and made her way to the apartment to say goodbye to Dani.

"That girl really is something…" Danny muttered, a large smile on his face as he made his way back into school.

**XXX**

"Dani? Hey, Dani!" Ember called, entering the lounge. The girl was sat on the couch, munching her way through a bag of maltesers and flipping through the television channels.

"There's... something I need to tell you," the ghost said quietly, sitting down next to the girl. Danielle gave her a confused look at her grave expression and sat up, setting the television on mute..

"W-what...is it? You're not secretly working for Plasmius, are you?" she asked, half joking and half terrified.

Ember shook her head and laughed. "What? No! You see how I'm in my ghost form now?" she asked.

The young halfa nodded. "I was gonna ask about that. You finally got caught?"

Ember sighed. "Yeah, but that's not what I want to tell you." Why was this so hard to say? She was just a little kid, right? She mentally frowned. No, this kid meant more to her than that. She was lying to herself if she thought otherwise.

"I... achieved my objective," she told the girl, almost guiltily. "I'm going back to the Ghost Zone."

It took a minute for the implications of that to sink into the girl's head, but when it did, she didn't like it.

"W-what…? You're _leaving_?" she exclaimed, staring at the ghost with shock. "You _can't _leave! Not after- am I _not good enough_ for you, _either_?" Why did everyone she cared about have to leave her alone? It wasn't fair!

Ember frowned at the panicked girl. "Calm down, pipsqueak. This isn't about you." she said quietly, affectionately petting the girl's raven black hair to calm her down. "It's just that I miss my home. I can't stay here forever."

Dani shut her eyes and leaned on Ember's shoulder. "Why not?" she mumbled.

The rockstar ghost frowned. No, she _couldn't_ stay, _could she_? She weighed the pros and cons of staying in her head for a moment. Cons: No ghost lair, forced to masquerade as a human. Pros: Staying with Dani and looking after her, no Skulker to bug her, _Danny_. She sighed again. She was torn. She wanted to go home, but at the same time, she really wanted to stay. Where would she rather be? Now, if you had asked her that same question a while ago, she would have automatically said; "Ghost Zone. No question about it, babypop." But now? She had no clue.

"Please don't leave! I'll be all alone again..." she heard Dani whisper desperately as she felt two small arms wrap around her torso. Ember hugged her back, her decision made.

"I... can't believe I'm saying this, but... alright, squirt. I'm not gonna leave."

"YES! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" the girl exclaimed, hugging the singer even tighter.

"Woah, ease up on the hug there, babypop. I need those lungs for my singing." Danielle giggled and let go of the teen as Ember stood up from the couch.

"Where are you going?" the halfa asked. "It's a bit early for dinner, now."

Ember grinned and made her way to the front door. "Where do you think I'm going? I'm gonna tell Danny that I decided to stay! Just hope Sam isn't too mad at me for it, though."

With that, she left the building and flew off invisibly to the school where she knew Danny was, having P.E, probably.

**XXX**

Speeding into the gym, she stopped when she saw Sam, Tucker and Danny standing around waiting to be called for dodgeball again. Danny, she noticed, looked a lot more upset than the others were, for some reason. Could it be that he... missed her?

"Yo, Fenton!" she whispered into his ear. The boy, not expecting it, jumped and spun around to find the source of the voice. He found none of course, as Ember was currently invisible, but his blue wisp of a ghost sense did go off.

"Chill, Danny. It's just Ember. Meet me outside the school. I've gotta tell you something."

Danny gave her an inconspicuous nod to show that he heard her and asked Mrs. Tetslaff if he could go get some air because he was 'feeling dizzy'. His friends, not knowing what he was up to, gave him odd looks, but he ignored them and sped off towards the school's exit. If Ember was willing to come into the school in ghost form, he knew it had to be important.

"Glad you could make it," Ember grinned, making herself visible when Danny was eventually stood behind the school, out of sight.

The boy grinned back. "You know how I like to chill."

Ember chuckled. "So not the time, dude. But anyway, I… um… wanted to let you know my decision." She was nervously playing with her bangs again.

"Your… decision?" he asked nervously. What the heck was she talking about?

"I've decided I'm... uh... how do I put this? I'm staying in AmityPark."

If it was possible, Danny's grin grew wider. "You are? That's great! Why the sudden change of heart?"

She shrugged. "Writer wouldn't let me go home, so I've been sharing an apartment with someone. She needs me and... I can't let her down." Danny raised an eyebrow, wondering who this roommate was. "Plus," she continued with a wink, "if it also means I get to see a _certain half ghost hero_ a lot more too, then I guess that's a bonus."

Danny blushed at her. "Ember, I-" he was interrupted by his lips getting pressed together by someone else's purple ones: Ember. Ember was _kissing_ him. In that moment, the space of a few minutes felt like hours and the two felt fireworks that you would never believe. Suddenly, his nervousness didn't matter anymore. The fact that he'd been outside longer than he should have didn't matter anymore. Nothing else mattered...but her.

Suddenly, the two heard a creak of the school's back door opening and a gasp. It was Sam and Tucker, probably looking for Danny. The two were staring at the two ghost teens making out in complete shock.

"Woah! Way to _go_, Danny!" Tucker exclaimed, as the two parted lips. Sam, meanwhile, was completely horrified.

"_Danny_? What are you DOING? She's a _ghost_!"

Danny and Ember weren't listening. There were far too occupied with staring into each other's eyes. Bright green met baby blue and in that moment, the two felt a spark.

"Hey, Ember...you busy Saturday?" Danny found himself asking, a dazed, lovestruck look on his face. Ember looked pretty much the same as Danny did at this point.

"If that was you asking me out, then yeah, dipstick. Totally."

Sam groaned. "Ugh! I'm going back inside. You two are starting to freak me out." Without another word, the goth stormed back to P.E, fuming, with Tucker grinning closely behind her.

The two lovestruck teenagers didn't even notice them leave. "You will? Great!" Danny grinned and then coughed to compose himself. "I mean, uh...that's cool I guess. No big."

Ember chuckled at the boy. "Meet me at 23 Spectre Street at 8:30. You'll get to meet my roommate."

**XXX**

With that, Ember flew off to the Ghost Zone in search for the Ghost Writer's library, still blushing a bright green. Luckily, since the Ghost Zone was mostly green as well, her face's sudden green hue was barely noticeable.

She flew until she landed at the front entrance, and cautiously opened the doors. "Hey, Writer! You here?"

He swept up behind her, and casually asked, "Since you're back, I'm assuming you have it?" She turned around and nodded, opening her backpack to show him. He grinned, and made a grab for it.

She pulled back and closed it. "Wait, there's a catch. You get the book, you don't destroy my guitar, and you give me a new disguise earring. Without the additional communicator."

Eagerly, he agreed, "Deal, deal!" He grinned beamed when she handed it to him, and hugged it to his chest.

"The earring?" He nodded, running back to his office and using his keyboard to create one. He soon came out, and Ember put the earring in place, after it magically appeared in her hand. She smiled when her ghostly form turned into 'Emma.' "Thanks. Why is that book so special, anyway?"

He sighed happily, "It was the first book I ever published. I used real Esperanto spells! If someone were to be smart enough to figure out how to say them, they could summon a real golem!" More seriously, he said, "Now it's my turn to ask you a question. Why do you still need the disguise?"

She shrugged, "May as well spread it around, I'm staying in the human world. It'll keep Skulker off my back."

He rose a skeptical eyebrow, yet said nothing more. She flew back through the Ghost Zone, and back to her apartment.

When Saturday finally came around, Ember was the most excited she had ever been. She hadn't gone out with an actual boy she liked since her death and no, she wasn't counting the insensitive oaf, Skulker. She honestly had no idea why she had even agreed to go out with that loser in the first place. She sat on the blue couch, staring at the wall clock anxiously. She was ready and the date was in about five minutes. Where was Danny? She hoped-no, _prayed_- that she hadn't been stood up again because if she had...she didn't think she'd be able to trust another boy again.

"Don't worry, Em," Dani reassured her friend. "He'll come, I promise." The teen gave a slight, yet still anxious nod. She hoped Dani was right.

She continued to watch the seconds tick by on the clock. Seconds turned into 3 minutes, minutes turned into twenty…

_BRIIING!_

The doorbell. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched Danielle open the door, an encouraging grin on her face.

"Hey, Danny!" Danielle greeted cheerfully. Danny looked like he usually did, but he also looked like he had several new bruises on his arms. Ember didn't care though- he had actually shown up.

"Dani? What are you doing here?" He asked in shock. Then suddenly, it dawned on him. "Wait... are you Ember's roommate?"

The girl nodded, but before she could say anything, Ember approached the door.

"Move along, pipsqueak," Ember smirked at Dani. "I've got a date to go to."

Danny gaped. Ember looked... really beautiful. She had curled some of her hair and it was draped over her shoulders instead of in her usual ponytail. She was also wearing some ripped denim trousers with a purple sequined tank top. Suddenly, Danny felt really underdressed.

"Look, sorry I'm late," he told her as they walked out of the apartment. "There was this ghost attack and-" The boy stopped when he felt Ember holding his hand.

"It doesn't matter, Danny," she said, smiling. "I'm just glad you came. So, where are we going, _boyfriend_?"

Danny grinned and squeezed her hand. He loved hearing her refer to him as her boyfriend. "I thought we'd catch a movie. Must have been ages since you've seen one."

She nodded. "I can't remember the last time I watched one, what with being...dead and all."

When the two finally reached the Cinema, Ember eagerly scanned the list of movies. There were so many, so she really didn't know which one to pick. There was a romance, horror, comedy, animation... how in the Ghost Zone did anybody ever know which one to watch?

"Hey, Fenturd!" An annoyingly familiar jock's voice called from behind them.

It was Dash, Paulina holding onto his arm, both with sneers on their faces. Danny groaned.

"Who's the hot chic? Your sister?" Dash teased, Paulina laughing hysterically.

"I'm his _girlfriend_, jerkwad," Emma countered, annoyed at their treatment of Danny. Honestly, if they knew half of what he had to put up with, they'd be singing a very different tune, she was sure. "Not that _you_ would know much about girlfriends with that _cougar_ attached to your arm."

Danny scoffed as the two popular kids walked away angrily. "Wow, thanks Emma."

The popstar shrugged. "It's alright, Danny. Nobody walks over my guy and gets away with it." The two stared at each other blushing for a while until the sound of crunching popcorn brought them back to reality.

"I guess we better pick a movie, huh? You choose- I don't know what half of these are," Ember commented, staring at the list again with confusion.

"We could try that Disney movie. Even if the movie does end up sucking, at least the soundtrack is supposed to be good."

Ember nodded. It was better than nothing, she supposed.

**XXX**

After the movie, the two made their way outside the building and starting walking around the area. The weather was really hot and sunny that day and they wanted to make the most of it.

"You know, Danny, you were right," Ember remarked as they walked, his arm around her shoulders.

"Hmm?"

"That movie really _did_ have a great soundtrack, especially for a cartoon." To prove her point, the rocker took out her guitar and started playing a punk version of one of the songs from it.

"You know, I think that's amazing," Danny said dreamily. The girl cocked an eyebrow and turned to look at what dial her guitar was on. Nope, still normal mode.

"What is?"

"How you can just hear a song and play it on that guitar with hardly any effort."

She chuckled. "Music's my life, babypop. Or, afterlife anyway. Back in the GZ, I'd sit in my lair for hours and listen to all of the human songs that I could get my hands on and practice playing 'em."

Danny blinked. He hadn't expected that. He always just assumed she only wrote her own music.

"I don't know how you do it," he remarked. "I can barely play the triangle."

Ember laughed again and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Don't be so hard on yourself, dipstick. You were really good at singing in the music room the other day."

He raised both eyebrows. "Really?"

She nodded. "I know when we first met I told that I don't do duets, but I'm willing to make an exception for you." She winked at him and he blushed crimson. Honestly, that boy blushed so easily, or was that just around her?

"Well, if I'm as good as you say, why should I want to duet? Maybe, just maybe I can just _do et_ alone," He said all this with a smug smirk.

"Was that a challenge, dipstick?" she gave him a familiar challenging look.

Without even answering the question, he began singing.

_"__I knew you were trouble when you walked iiin. Shame on my no-ow, flew me to places I'd never bee-en 'til you put me down oh!"_

Ember almost lost herself in his dreamy singing voice and she felt her heart melt as he sang to her. Still, she hadn't lost a challenge to him yet and she didn't plan to start.

_"__With a thousand lies, and a good disguise," _she belted out, playing the tune on her guitar with ease._ "hit 'em right between the eyes, hit 'em right between the eyes. When you walk away, nothing more to say, see the lightning in your eyes, see 'em running for their lives!"_

Danny grinned. It was his turn again and he knew just what to sing.

_"__Old, but I'm not that old, young, but I'm not that bold. I don't think the world is sold, I'm just doing what we're told. Oooooh, I feel something so wrong, by doing the right thing, I couldn't lie, couldn't lie, couldn't lie. Everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly!"_

Ember felt herself swoon at his beautiful singing voice again and she almost didn't realise it was her turn until Danny nudged her gently to remind her what was going on.

"Huh?" she muttered, a bright red dazed look on her face until she remembered what she had been doing before she lost herself in Danny's voice.

"Oh, right. Uh…" she was running out of songs now. It was time to break out the classic.

_"__I live for the applause, applause, applause, I live for the applause-plause, live for the applause-plause, live for the way that you cheer and scream for applause, applause, applause!"_

Danny grinned at her. "Nice try, but I still technically win."

"What? No you don't!" she protested, pouting. "I totally won that one, dipstick!"

He laughed. "You stopped for a whole five minutes. I'd say that means I win."

Ember gasped, her face blushing bright red. She'd been lost in his voice for _that_ long? Wow, he was good.

"No i-" her protests were cut off by a kiss on the lips. Like the one earlier, it hadn't lost its fireworks. When the two separated, they were both grinning like lovestruck idiots.

"You're so cute when you're angry."

She rested her forehead on his. "Love you too, dipstick."

In that moment, neither of them were certain where this relationship would go, but both of them knew that Ember's decision to stay in AmityPark was going to be one of the best decisions of her afterlife.

**The End**

** Thanks for reading!**


End file.
